Another overlooked factor in the win...

[RF2044]

...Louisville got their 61st and 62nd point on that play where MCW got ripped by Russ Smith, who turned the turnover into an uncontested dunk. That happened around the 7:30 mark [give or take].

We then held them scoreless for the next 4+ minutes, and didn't let them score again until after we had the lead.

Wow.

Tough play down the stretch. We probably don't win without clamping down defensively like we did during that stretch.

 

[albanycuse]

Our defense is pretty much very good most of the time but our offense is def not consistently smooth at times.


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[jdubs30]

Defense wins championships. The team has bought into that and hopefully it keeps up the rest of the year.

 

[jekelish]

Also note that was MCW's last turnover of the game.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Our defense is even better than last year if you ask me. What we have given up in fabs shot blocking, we have more than gained in rebounding.

 

[FortyFourCT]

I kept telling my wife: runs start with defense! I was right for once.

 

[rrlbees]

Also note that was MCW's last turnover of the game.

It was pretty much the last time he brought the ball up court too. That's where most of his turnovers were coming from.

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[STEVEHOLT]

we would have shut them down completely if we didnt have the turnover fest in the first half

 

[44cuse]

...Louisville got their 61st and 62nd point on that play where MCW got ripped by Russ Smith, who turned the turnover into an uncontested dunk. That happened around the 7:30 mark [give or take].

We then held them scoreless for the next 4+ minutes, and didn't let them score again until after we had the lead.

Wow.

Tough play down the stretch. We probably don't win without clamping down defensively like we did during that stretch.

Defensive Rebounding in the first half was incredible as well. I think I heard them say Louisville had 1 OREB in the first half.

44cuse

 

[Ragman2000]

I kept telling my wife: runs start with defense! I was right for once.

For me it starts when it's taco time.

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[pfister1]

It was pretty much the last time he brought the ball up court too. That's where most of his turnovers were coming from.

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Does Syracuse not use screens to break press? It seemed like the ball would get to MCW and the backcourt and then everyone would move upcourt and leave him to try to break the press. There were a bunch of times where I felt like if one guy set a screen that he could have run his man into it would have given him free entry into the front court??

 

[JoeCollege]

If any of the Louisville guards could get proper loft on an alley oop pass, they'd have won by 6. They should add Sherman Douglas to the coaching staff.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

...Louisville got their 61st and 62nd point on that play where MCW got ripped by Russ Smith, who turned the turnover into an uncontested dunk. That happened around the 7:30 mark [give or take].

We then held them scoreless for the next 4+ minutes, and didn't let them score again until after we had the lead.

And that's what Pitino was alluding to in his press conference. Since they couldn't score, they couldn't press us. Made a huge difference down the stretch. The Prefessor definitely taught the student another lesson.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Our defense is even better than last year if you ask me. What we have given up in fabs shot blocking, we have more than gained in rebounding.

Number 3 defense per kenpom

 

[RollOrange]

I kept telling my wife: runs start with defense! I was right for once.

Or bad beer.

 

[SoBeCuse]

We are still giving up lots of offensive rebounds, no? There was a stretch in the 2H where Dieng and Benahan were killing us there. I didn't like the MCW turnovers near the basket where he was trying to dump it off to people when it wasn't there. This game will be a huge learning tool for him. We overcame it but can't have all those turnovers vs another pressing team say in the Tourney. Gotta work on this stuff. HUGE win. I pray MCW didn't hurt himself on that dunk landing. When the adrenaline wore off he will be sore at the very least. Nasty fall which should've been an and-1.

 

[Knicks411]

Our defense is even better than last year if you ask me. What we have given up in fabs shot blocking, we have more than gained in rebounding.

This is the first time I've been able to post here since the game, so hopefully this stuff hasn't been mentioned already, but..

1) Definitely agree with this; the defensive efficiency is 3rd in the country; last year we were 17th. 17th is obviously really good, but 3rd is elite. And if you can believe it, we actually have a higher shot block% this year than last year. But a big factor has been our defensive rebounding improving from nearly worst in the country to average.
2) The biggest stat for me was the turnovers. I think we had something like 10 in the first 9 minutes. We ended up with 15, so over the last 31 minutes, against one of the best pressure defenses in the country, we only turned it over 5 times.

 

[Melancer46]

My roommate is the reason we won. He says "you know what? We haven't had a steal for a transition bucket all game." All of a sudden, MCW picks up 2 or 3 steals in a row to end the game. Coincidence? I think not.

 

[OrangeZone]

yesterday, the team grew up! In many ways this is a young group who are growing up; its also a group that is demonstrating it's ability to turn adversity into winning.
CJ is a consistently strong player who knows how to score and rebound effectively against all competition.

MCW is both young and relatively inexperienced who is growing into a top playmaker; I especially love how he corrected his first half miscues with a dynamic 2nd half. His closeout D was what saved our bacon.

JG is really coming on in replacement of JS; in that important 6th man role. He scores, rebounds, blocks shots and hustles; throughout his time in the game.


BT was BT at his best! When he plays like he did yesterday he can take over a game; which he did in the 1st half.


Now some rest for a tough contest against UC on Monday.

Go Orange!!!

 

[Orange87]

And that's what Pitino was alluding to in his press conference. Since they couldn't score, they couldn't press us. Made a huge difference down the stretch. The Prefessor definitely taught the student another lesson.

See I didn't quite understand that, explain that to me.

Louisville was having difficulty scoring so as a result they shouldn't press on 'D'. I'm not sure I see the correlation.

 

[RF2044]

See I didn't quite understand that, explain that to me.

Louisville was having difficulty scoring so as a result they shouldn't press on 'D'. I'm not sure I see the correlation.

Because when you score, the other team has to inbound the ball, which enables you to slap on the press.

 

[RF2044]

This is the first time I've been able to post here since the game, so hopefully this stuff hasn't been mentioned already, but..

1) Definitely agree with this; the defensive efficiency is 3rd in the country; last year we were 17th. 17th is obviously really good, but 3rd is elite. And if you can believe it, we actually have a higher shot block% this year than last year. But a big factor has been our defensive rebounding improving from nearly worst in the country to average.
2) The biggest stat for me was the turnovers. I think we had something like 10 in the first 9 minutes. We ended up with 15, so over the last 31 minutes, against one of the best pressure defenses in the country, we only turned it over 5 times.

I don't think that rebounding should be part of the equation for assessing defense--it should be its own metric.

It has also skewed the numbers these past two years because we were so comparatively poor rebounding last year, but phenomenal defensively in just about every other respect.

That said, there is no question that we are a better rebounding team this year [Temple performance notwithstanding].

 

[Orange87]

Because when you score, the other team has to inbound the ball, which enables you to slap on the press.

Aah, so he wasn't saying that they SHOULDN'T press, he was saying that they COULDN'T press.

Got it, that makes sense. I must have misheard Pitino in the presser, thanks.

 

[Knicks411]

Interesting, because to me, defensive rebounding is definitely part of defense. You need to close out a defensive possession with a rebound to keep the other team from scoring. Obviously I wouldn't consider offensive rebounding a part of defense, but defense rebounding is just as much a part of defense as field goal defense, to me. What good is forcing a missed shot if you don't get the rebound?

It has also skewed the numbers these past two years because we were so comparatively poor rebounding last year, but phenomenal defensively in just about every other respect.

This is true, but overall, the point of defense is to keep the other team from scoring points. (Well, also stuff like igniting your own team's offense with steals, etc). We were great at blocking shots last year, for instance, but I think some of that has to be tempered by the fact that we were so terrible rebounding the ball defensively. I don't think those two were unrelated; Fab frequently took himself out of rebounding position to go for blocks. So it's definitely a credit to the team this year that we can still get as many blocks as we do but still do decent work on the defensive glass.

There is one thing I remember thinking about last year or the year before, with regard to defensive efficiency, and I'm not sure if it could be tracked or not. But say you have two teams that have the same defensive efficiency; they each allow 1 point per possession or whatever. If there is one team that does that with say 15 steals per game, and another team that does it with 5 steals per game, wouldn't you consider the team with the more steals to be better? Reason I say that is because defense doesn't exist in a vacuum; you can turn defense into offense. So I'm assuming, for the sake of my argument, that the team with 15 steals is probably getting more transition opportunities and easy buckets than the team with the five steals. That doesn't really have much to do with what you said, but I have been thinking about it. The fact that we were 17th in defensive efficiency last year, but also second in blocks and 5th in steals, might mean that realistically our defense did more to help the team win than the 16th ranked defense, which was New Mexico.

 

[Sgt Cuse]

Aah, so he wasn't saying that they SHOULDN'T press, he was saying that they COULDN'T press.

Got it, that makes sense. I must have misheard Pitino in the presser, thanks.

But they COULD have still pressed. After we got a rebound he could have hounded the person who tried to bring the ball up. He chose not to do that. He generally doesn't do that, but it doesn't mean he couldn't.